The Coin of Carthage

The war that began in 218 B.C. with Hannibal's march across the Alps is one of the familiar stories of history, but its details are little known. A struggle between an emerging barbarian power and an old culture, it pitted a Roman army of mostly farmers against the highly trained officers of Carthage. Hannibal's empire, founded on her control of the sea, would lose her fight against the Romans' new methods of naval warfare.